Birds Suffer Horribly for Pillows & Coats Down, the soft breast feathers of live birds, is mixed with slaughterhouse feathers from ducks and geese to fill pillows and coverlets at many hotels and in the making of some designer outerwear. The feathers originate on industrial farms where they are ripped from the bodies of live geese, leaving them bleeding in excruciating pain. Other feathers are byproducts of the foie gras industry, in which ducks and geese are force fed with metal tubes to create diseased livers for gourmet appetizers. Investigator Marcus Mueller tracks the Hungarian plucking brigades – men and women who go from farm to farm stripping feathers from live geese. There are plucking brigades in Poland, Russia and Moldova, but Hungary is the largest source of live-plucked feathers and down. Birds are stripped every five weeks and their bleeding wounds are roughly sewn up with a needle and thread before they are slaughtered at 6 months old. Says Mueller:
Photo by Society for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing
Photo by Four Paws/Farmwatch
“The men and women from the brigades work without feeling, grabbing terrified geese by their wings or legs, sometimes breaking them, always hurting them, as they tear out the birds’ feathers.” Manufacturers and retailers who say they don’t use down from live-plucked birds cannot prove their claim. Mueller explains: “Brigades go from farm to farm stripping the birds as they go, then the feathers are sold to brokers and middlemen who mix liveplucked feathers with those recovered from slaughtered animals.” Birds who are not plucked alive but whose feathers are included in pillows, comforters and clothing are confined in filthy, diseaseridden buildings the same as the live-plucked birds. Feathers from slaughtered chickens are stuffed in pillows and coats along with feathers from more than 2 billion slaughterhouse ducks each year.